Hi--Good morning;

I look forward to working with you all and I welcome this opportunity.  For now,  I come to you with the highest of courtesy to speak of the highest priority we have at this moment and for the foreseeable and at least to the remainder of 2005. 

A high priority at present and continuing is to placement, redeployment of significant numbers of TSMs, TLs, Sr. TDs across this organization lead by L**** S*****, and to make this placement and redeployment during and in 2005. 

Regardless of whether we are outsourced or regardless of whether we stay in-house, we have a significant number of personnel to make to placement in other arenas, other departments, other entities, other locations, other metros.  We have made tremendous progress in personnel placement in 2005 and in late 2004, and recent stats for placement in April and May are impressive and there is a significant undertow and overflow of focus being placed by the leadership toward placement of personnel.  However we cannot let up.  We still have a long way to go and we must take to every avenue, every possibility, every effort such that we make this transition. 

I respect this note could be unsettling and it could also be sobering to rumors you have heard and it is certainly not my intent to bring emotions but I believe you already know what we have to do.  I also believe it is far better to speak to clarity and details in as much as possible, rather than to remain in wonderment and to simply hope this storm will pass.  This will not simply just pass by. We must respond accordingly and appropriately.  

Here is an outline for consideration and in no particular order but only as it comes to me: 

·         The reality is we cannot come to all these redeployments unless there is some relocation to metros that hold job openings. I invite each of you to closely consider your home and personal situation and toward goals you aspire to and as it concerns to **C.  I respect that many of you remain devoted to a particular geographical location.  I just am posing of latitude regarding to what the current environment is bringing.

·         Please update your resume.  If you have done so already then just fine but if you need assistance, I offer appropriate and personal time to that.    

·         If you are not aware, here is a site that holds to excellent resources for training and adjustment to new technologies that come with certain job ads.  I invite you to consider this as a possibility to transition.     http://ito.**c.com/training.html;   UNIX remains hot...

·         There could be other training-type resources out there and I look for input from the TLs as well as from you all.  

·         I will continue to send Job Ads from the ITO internal placement process.  If you don't have those please say to me.

·         Please also check the Career Path site on a regular basis.  It is difficult for me to console with comments of, there are no jobs in this major-metro, or there are no jobs in this small-metro.  Consider that there are still opportunities out there and somewhere and depending on your personal goals, your personal desires and your personal situation and to your goals with **C.

·         Please consider that other departments are also downsizing which means competition for jobs is intensifying and will likely continue. 

·         I believe it is commensurate now to assume that jobs saying to a particular metro are just that--fixed to that metro and especially as competition for jobs comes.  The pendulum is moving from that aspect of remote reporting.  An example is the **** **** development with close schedules and their preference is to be able to "see" that person rather than to "see" the screen.  Perfectly understandable. 

·         Please do not lull yourselves into thinking or coming to a wait-and-see approach.  Please take appropriate steps and steps accordingly.   

·         The technological capabilities and the expertise that we hold and held in DSFS have become relatively common to this virtual world.  I say this with the greatest respect, but then you already know.  This comes to a very basic law of Economics.   The supply of expertise has overwhelmed demand.  We have got to evolve to another area, arena…yes I am repeating. 

·         If you have other suggestions, please call or mail.  And oh by the way, my boss and my dear friend L**** S***** has come to an organization and to those immense responsibilities to a level that I personally have never seen nor imagined in my almost 33 years with this Fine Corporation. The point here is if you feel you must and must write or must Q or must call to L**** S*****,  then please do so only after you have exhausted contact with your TL and then only if you have exhausted contact with me and that you do not feel appropriately or sufficiently satisfied to that.  I openly and clearly ask that you please respect the chain and to the obvious organizational layout here.  Please. 

Overall and most significantly, we should remain very proud of our deliveries and the fantastic and unparallel service in DSFS and through the many years and of what we did there.  Very proud. What has happened here should be to the very obvious to all of you.  Technology has expanded and technology has provided very many attributes and advantages that allow us to work Service Orders to anywhere and from anywhere, as just one example.  Hardware is to a high level of reliability.  Software is too.  Things just do not break like they used to.  Our Customers and overall Client base are much more computer-literate and of course and fantastic, but that means they do not call on us like in years past.  MCSE certifications,  Cisco Certifications seem to minimum of expectations in today's world.  Supply and demand--basic economics.  Our Customer base is not growing and in fact it is decreasing in some locations.  Service Orders that were to SMS and being taken by TSMs are now and properly should be directed to the SMS organization.   In years past we placed Business Service Centers to the smaller metros but we cannot expect that to expand.  We became very excellent at what we did for many years and we should remain proud for that.  We kept SLAs to the very ceiling for many years.  Thank you all so very much for that.  Now and however it comes that we must evolve into something else and to other arenas. 

Below is an excerpt from a PPT presentation I made to L**** S*****'s Staff Meeting on May 12, 2005.  I came of my own to these words but I believe they sum concretely and to the order of what we face.   Overall, I remain so very confident and appropriately optimistic that all of us can move along and that we can make to a proper, deliberate and clear contribution and to remain with this Fine Corporation.  But there is no doubt we will have to make personal decisions and to those related adjustments, training, relocations, adjustments as I have tried to describe. 

The outlook is: the vast majority of us from east to west and in between, will not retire in the DSFS arena we knew regardless of time or service.  The fact is we have to and we must continue to evolve into whatever the customer environment demands and is demanding and has been demanding. Otherwise we will become wholly extinct or otherwise we move to another arena or loudly to another profession.  Technology is wonderful but technology does not hold nor does it wait to human emotions. 

To the last I will offer to each of you…please be brave and please be appropriately confident.  The rest is easy.  But please do not sit back to a wait-and-see aspect or approach.  Please take appropriate steps that come to the most and highest of resolution for you.  

I appreciate your time here. 

Thank you